I'm just a fellow out standing in his field...
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The Useful Duck!

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Friday, May 14, 2010

Farm accident drill and planting corn

I planted corn the other day.
A couple things went wrong. Not only that day, but for the rest of the week. I don't even know what day it started to go wrong.
But things were not as bad for me as for this poor straw man who went through the haybine. I guess that is why strawman purchases are illegal...

The fire department called me whilst I was planting and wanted to use some junk farm equipment for a safety drill. Well, why did you call us?! Oh the neighbor said you were scrapping, can we do it this evening. Um... if you would have called a WEEK ago we had two silage choppers and headers but now they are headed for CHINA... So, I had him call my brother.
The brother found a combine header and a haybine and when I got home I jack knifed the 2-135 and disk so they could trap another straw man between the tire and the tongue.
It was interesting. They tried a sawzall on the combine header and ruined two blades. I think the straw dude died. They tried to lift the disk with airbags but the aircompressor wouldn't start. Eventually they used hydraulic jacks to move the disk away from the guy. The fireman in charge demonstrated why you can't move the tractor. First, he couldn't figure out how to get the White in gear as I had put it in park. Then when he moved the tractor he shut the engine off without putting it back in park and it rolled backwards and squished the poor scarecrow once again.
The fellow in the hayconditioner was pretty much declared a goner. They couldn't get the rolls to move. Well, they have not moved in 20 years so that might have been the problem.
The fire department had a good time and got to use their bright lights so it was pretty much a successful training session.
But, I digress...
Back to planting corn!
First of all, I thought the field was going to be ten acres larger than it was so that kind of got me off on the wrong foot I guess.
Then I laid out the field wrong. There were wet spots at one end. The farmer left wide headlands. He is going to combine the corn with a direct cut header. He needed wide headlands. What I should have done was either step off 60 foot and put up flags or make a couple passes empty and start four planter widths from the edge of the field. Then, when I was finished I could just make four trips around the field in a circle. I do this with the drill frequently if I am planting back and forth, but with the corn planter I had my head up my arse.
I had a lot of problems with the markers slowly moving in on one side. That was just frustrating.

I went to sleep and didn't hear the low seed alarm. So, I dug up rows for an hour trying to find the spot where i ran out of seed. I did find some very nice spacing of seeds.

I was trying to get the population up from 34000 seeds to 34400 seeds per acre. I think I looked a the chart wrong and moved the wrong sprocket because it jumped to 44,000 seeds per acre and I ran out of seed too soon. I got that fixed and the fertilizer plugged up. I think I caught that right away.

Otherwise it did a very nice job. I have not planted conventionally tilled fields for a long time. All the no-till attachments really work the ground nice, and the new Keeton seed firmers were really working. There was no seed on top of the ground. I planted about 1 1/2" deep. Right down in the moisture.
NOW-if there are no skipped rows do to me not watching the monitor.... I really need a population type monitor.

I feel like kind of a moron with my planting. I hope my friend will still speak to me when the corn comes up. I hope the corn actually comes up.
Yesterday I strip-tilled five acres for duck hunter corn. We are planting a 68 day nonGMO variety. It was really too wet but my cousin is going to plant sweet corn in the field and it has to have a separation of three weeks because of cross pollination. This is kind of screwing things up but you do what your landlord wishes I guess.
Then the employee shows up on the 4-wheeler. The turbo is ticking on the 2-135. It is 5:05 and and too late to order a new on from A&I. I tried the internet but couldn't get the dealer code to load. So, I guess I better get the uncle to order me a turbo this morning...
Then, I think I will plant our whoppingly huge 10 acre soybean field. And work the Teff ground with the 2-155. I like to hook and unhook all the wires and hoses on the Great Plains drill for 10 acre plantings. Oh, perhaps I could plant Jose's 2 acres of Garbonzo beans. (Chick peas)

Ed, I'm not really the corn planter guy and he said he wanted 34,000 seeds. It looked like it was just a matter of moving the chain to the next sprocket... If I would have just noticed that the seeds were 3 1/2 inches apart instead of 6" I would have figured out there was a problem. Then I kind started going to sleep. I always go to sleep running that tractor. So, yeah, I was close enough, I should have just left everything alone...